


Indulgence and Ignorance

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band), Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: M/M, Neon Genesis Evangelion AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 02:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: In the time of angels and dread, Taeyong falls for his superior.





	Indulgence and Ignorance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mork/gifts).



> no spoilers for the show in this, can be read w/o having seen the show

"It's the 2.01 model, actually," Dongyoung said, elbows dragging along the table so his sleeves were scratched up with dust. He was going through a lab coats phase, despite his insistence that it was all about the nature of the project and the necessary precautions that went with such a thing. Donghyuck had argued that it was a plea for uniformity across the board of workers and nothing more- though he was of course brushed off with the label of  _ 'grumpy teenager _ ' being thrown around, accompanied by such an ease that the lab became an echo chamber for what was called,  _ 'taking him down a peg'.  _ They never said it, but it was easier to think of Donghyuck as a grumpy teenager than the other option which shall not be named. It wasn't like the convention existed these days. Everyone was hot blooded and wired, down in the scrapyards with their heads bowed between their knees, and when in the same boat it wouldn't make due to mark it up as a case of the blues. 

Taeyong swivelled the chair around. It was new, and still he found great utility within it that had yet to be mirrored by anyone else on the team. It brought the circulation to his legs and back out again; this was a claim that was nothing if not overused, and slightly nonsensical. "When did you upgrade it again?"

"Last night. They said to do extra hours and though I never consider their orders compulsory, I'd supposed I might as well've. So I stayed. Your little friend was here-" this little friend was Jaehyun, who had proven himself to be young with his walkman and his energy drinks and his exclusive messaging client, and as a direct cause of this he'd had a fall from dust on the career ladder. "He was playing his CDs for hours- you would've hated it."

"You're not that old," Taeyong said, "you know it was Ariana Grande, it's okay to say it."

Dongyoung still had his eyes on the graph paper, sketching out a fantasy flamethrower which would never be implemented into their final product, on his own accord as much as anyone else's. It went unsaid, but lowered to the pits of their lungs, everyone knew that he was the closest to real power when it came to who held the most potential to hurt. He was close to the higher ups and Donghyuck Lee. The higher ups were closer to god. Donghyuck Lee was closer to savior status. The rest of them were waiting for their legs to blacken with ash, a crime of masochism away from hell- and this included Taeyong, harmless old Taeyong who'd been fed faxes to pass about the offices until he'd risen up the ranks, like a true white haired dog. He was kept close to operations in their practicing stage, basking in the warmth from the fireplace while his bank account fattened up nicely for the claimed(it was far off the map when it came to reality now, dripping into the rumour tier with a foot jammed in hope's door) Christmas break. "We can't all be young in spirit and old in financial value. Some of us have to talk like we're waiting to die- no, really die, not like what you young ones claim when faced with minor hitches."

"That's worrying," Taeyong said, meant it. His legs were growing tired with their idleness, and his eyes would have to settle with the quick- though roundabout- tour of the place he'd embark on soon, being scanned by CCTV and neon lights. Maybe Jaehyun was making himself useful in the quietness department, tucked up in a janitor's closet with the soles of his converse against the wall and a new disc in the player. They could talk about being young, just as Dongyoung talked about growing pale with the desk lights he sat before every minute of the day. Taeyong watched Dongyoung click the red ballpoint down the shaft of the fourclicker and draw a scribble of fire. He'd always had this fascination with dynamic colour schemes, and thus the colour scheme of the second Eva had emerged in orange and royal blue. He was sporting the white lab coat with the black shirt, black jeans, and there existed an unfortunate effect which caused his legs to look like splinters by the way the jeans crumpled, flat across his shins. They were skinny enough already. Thinking about it, Taeyong wasn't sure if he'd ever seen Dongyoung eat before. In the cafeteria and further within its clique divisions, Dongyoung had never shown his face to present a new factor to the social equation, and the balance was delicate so if he appeared there'd be ripples of animosity sent across the team, the jaded ones turning their tuna melts over with a fork and regarding him as a hi-hat, the oblivious lot who'd been dubbed as 'fools' upon their recruitment regarding him as a messenger of god. He'd have them moving chairs to allow space for the flame, budding into moths before his very eyes. They'd accept him before closed doors and perhaps in the privacy of their positive side too, where admiration could be shielded from the public. 

Taeyong would accept him. It was no secret that he'd always been a bit sweet on Dongyoung in the way that white haired dogs were fond of everyone who'd presented no harm, to  _ them _ specifically, and in the right point of view, a bit selfishly. Indirect harm was another breed of creature; it walked among the rest which Taeyong chose to ignore. If the higher ups didn't have him propped below the guillotine's blade, then they were golden through his eyes. He liked to help his state of mind that way, by starving his morality until it was of little importance to his life, and thus the indirect pain was kept under black leaded cloth to evolve and twist and transform as it desired. Dongyoung's hands paused through the middle of the fire, and he drew his pen to tap against his chin, looking back at Taeyong. "You should go and find Jaehyun- keep him company for a bit, will you? And Donghyuck as well. They say he's down in himself, and that's when he's at his most useless."

So, fill his starved self esteem up through compliments. Or, Taeyong could draw attention away from it for a little while; it wouldn't be that hard. Donghyuck liked to make himself available for distraction- especially when it went both ways. The way everyone said it, was that he was far too extraordinary not to hate himself, that people found no need to put him on a pedestal as they were under the impression it had long since been slotted beneath his feet. People were all the same that way, and this was why Dongyoung had manipulated the shade to cover his actions, to make them unnoticeable enough that no one considered them as more than a public service. He was brilliant at what he did. They couldn't get rid of the vital organ if it met no conditions of negativity, functioned as long as it wished to- for eternity, so far. Perhaps he'd scrape through life with the fame of a company work horse. Perhaps the stress would manifest itself in his passion, and he'd be prepped for the transplant, escorted out the revolving tours as easily as the higher ups had done quite the opposite in the first place, some story of a boy genius who'd grown up amidst the hay rolls and ruined his own math teacher's self confidence at age thirteen. They'd picked him apart easily, though all of this caused no blips on the radar of 'narcissism' that the team had the hypocritical tendencies to possess. Dongyoung liked to stay quiet about his past. If a memory fell in the woods and no one was around to acknowledge it, had it even been remembered in the first place? Such was his chemical makeup, the strike of intelligence through him he'd shoehorned to fit the 'artificial' bill. He was mechanical. This hadn't seeped through him fully, and as of the middle tidings between cold winter and the romanticised version of it, each product of his own labour followed his trend on material alone, the hollowed steel of the Evas switched off at night, and his drawings had deviated from all of it and had become alive. The flamethrower spit out fire which surpassed it in brightness but never liveliness. 

Taeyong found Jaehyun in the janitor's closet just down the corridor, and Ariana was audible from his headset as it bobbed along his scalp, forever too stretched to fit around his ears as it should do. No one was sure why he'd been hired as an adult yet worked as a child. Needless to say, he was kept on, with some complaints from some butterfaces in the department below that the higher ups were seeking out poster boys, and Taeyong, the most useless, most meandering addition to the favourites club, was inclined to agree. If he was born with an uglier face, he'd have to use his long-neglected brains. This would be a hassle to go about- it was brought upon himself, as most of his delayed downfalls were, and the credit for his dumb blonde exterior had fallen towards the infrastructure of the organisation too, and he'd long since conditioned himself to burn away at half capacities, half care, half interest towards the outcome of Earth. As it was, things weren't looking too good for the human race. The last angel had materialised on the streets of Paris, crystal blue in exterior, shaped from what scientists had argued over for the six hours before the Evas could be deported as necessary, and as always humans were far too arrogant to consider other creatures capable of developing technology. When the royal blue Eva lasered it open(the beams were pink as per Dongyoung's design- he took no due acknowledgement for this) they found it was riddled with wires. 

The angels weren’t just intelligent in the condescending terms of crows now; they were  _ competent _ . The whole team had reeled at the thought, and Taeyong had casted forth the idea into the pool of dread that they were clairvoyants, who'd long since seen the inner workings of Earth as a post-post apocalyptic playing field, all the remaining humans dead with none of the movie survivors, and certainly none of the box office hits. 

This suggestion had shaken Jeongeon up, to the surprise of no one. She'd never take news standing up, and that was why they held these board meetings at a desk in the first place, rather than letting the rumours fester beneath the floorboards of every proverbial corridor and the plastic cafeteria trays and the back hands of moles. They had some money set aside for her in the monthly budget, should she screw herself over and promptly sue the team for it. Taeyong had felt a thousand eyes on him that day, focused enough to cause awareness, burning through his retinas straight to the map of the world that was hanging up behind him, and Jeongeon had freaked out for the fiftieth time and said,  _ they're gods, they're gods, I'm telling you , they're gods out to punish us! It's all over now! We should just surrender and hope for the best! Don’t all figures of god possess mercy? _

A real nutcase. Speaking of, Jaehyun admitted that he'd kissed her just last night before he caught a bus out to one of those complexes that bordered on fake, telephone wires snapping apart while purple sparks burst from their endings, overhead and tinged. It had been raining and she carried a white umbrella. "With lace," he said, trying his hardest to muffle the sounds of his headset- his walkman was jammed and the volume button wouldn't incite the appropriate, desperate reaction he so badly wanted. It smelled like paint stripper in the janitor's closet. Irrelevant, but Taeyong could do nothing to forget about it. The longer he sat there, watching shadows of footsteps pass the crack in the door(and block their only source of light), the heavier the smell became upon the gold set of scales, tipping over into the chemical fume section. Jaehyun was talking, wasn't he? It seemed likely; a case founded in quick payouts. He never knew when to stop, and stop he didn't- "like something that hot chick in the Addams Family would wear, but it was white, and it was an umbrella. And I'd never really thought about Jeongeon before so it was weird to be watching her that way, seeing her that way... the rain kept dribbling down her nose and it bothered me. She looked so good. So she kissed me, I guess."

"You guess?" Taeyong said, ass going numb. He didn't find any fantasy appeal from the situation that Jaehyun was trying to make a case for, trying to even out the ways in which Jeongeon could be marked up as a grade A oddity with anecdotes about her clothes and the dismal weather(in all honesty, Taeyong hadn't gotten a hair of sleep, or otherwise, yesterday, and not once had the window pattered with its purpose slipping away from itself, as the glass was fitted so skinny that it wasn't a reach to claim it'd shatter from the brisk collision of a mosquito) and even trying to slip in a likeness with Morticia Addams of all people, and Taeyong hadn't downgraded his intellect to the point of no return, to the point where he could see the world through Jaehyun's eyes. Jaehyun was too forgiving- that was his problem. He thought it was kind of Jeongeon to shadow him to the subway and thus had an excuse for her cultish way of thinking; no matter if it scraped rationality in zero definitions of the word.

"It's hard to say that someone kissed you, like it’s a definitive thing," he shrugged to give off the impression that he didn't know what he was talking about, and this was the uncommon instance where he sold himself short. Usually there was someone else who did it for him, holding the belief that he didn't live up to the leeways he’d been given access to.His headset burned out halfway through a pitch, and he spared it so much as a worried glance, and this was a good indication of how he'd react when Donghyuck was hit by the inevitable and kicked the bucket, as the headset had been a top priority of his which carried the value of Donghyuck's weight in gold through its wires, and Donghyuck was just a stranger of personalities and a frequenter of ages. They were playing with fate here and as Jeongeon liked to remind them, the pilots were in the red zone with the highest frequency. Shoved to the front lines, she'd say. Isn't that how you feel?

Donghyuck hadn't said anything to this. He bowed twice before he left the room, and across the table Dongyoung had made an offhand comment about how the degree of it was approaching the nineties, if one were to take out a protractor. Under his well mannered eyes, this was a compliment. They were so well mannered that they could poke out the good intentions in anything. This was one of the things Taeyong wished to steal about him- for once, he was placed in a position where his actions wouldn't filed by right or wrong or other pointless absolutes, but rather by the flair they'd been executed with. 

He was going pink; not the prettiest sight. It was cramp in here, and he told himself that in another dimension where Dongyoung wasn't too wrapped up in himself for romance, he'd be quite unimpressed to hear that Taeyong was in such close quarters with another man. "I don't see what's so definitive about it. Wait a minute-" he mimed a pause in speech, a tap to the temple which signified that the hamster was running along the wheel, producing thoughts for him yet again, "did she propose, is that it? How expensive was the ring?"

"Neither of us proposed," Jaehyun wasn't stifling laughter, so much as deciding whether or not it was the right way to be feeling, or to convey of his current feelings. Like Jeongeon, he had such a loose grip of the rug that it could be  pulled from under him by an infant upon witnessing how affected he was. This was by  _ everything _ , too, and more often than not he was moonfaced over something so simple as the lift of a starlings wing through the carriage window- this is from his description, of course, as the only birds Taeyong could name were the jackdaw, the crow, and the magpie. Perhaps it'd been a match made in heaven. Perhaps she was right about the way fate was maneuvering itself so disastrously, and the whole angel attack had been a move on god's part to ensure that her and Jaehyun would cross paths, allow the romance to bloom between two starcrossed lovers. 

Taeyong didn't like to theorise in areas which were kept dimmed from him on purpose, but his brain was forming a backstory and a future and a set of outfits surrounding the whole kiss, and he thought inwardly, that Jeongeon was on a pursuit of happiness now that she believed the world was having the cells shed off it by force. Humanity was resting on the feet of creatures that never excelled with anything by means of mercy. Carpe diem- she saw Jaehyun and allowed the Catholic guilt to dissipate through her long fingers, carpe diem, it was raining down the chute of her umbrella, carpe diem, alone, carpe diem, a kiss. 

He made no attempts to conspiricise with Jaehyun over this. Jaehyun seemed at peace with his identity as an adult, and Taeyong didn't want to be the one to set the insecurity back in motion.Still, he wished Dongyoung would drop the ball already and adopt these juvenile ideologies, see a lifetime as a straw or mercury and Taeyong as a good feeling, and kiss him in the rain, too. He fanned his face when the darkness allowed it, curling his toes at the thought. Life was so unfair. It beat everyone up for looking at the positives. Seeing niceties within Dongyoung that sparked this crush; that was his downfall. "Yet," he said, just like that. No end. 

"I don't like her," Jaehyun said, "I just like how it feels, like we've got all the time in the world."

Taeyong maneuvered himself into a standing position. "Yeah yeah- you couples are all the same-" and with this came the reminder that he was taking in all of Dongyoung's mannerisms, as if they were strays unacceptable in the residence of anyone else, the bitter nostalgia that sometimes inverted into genuinity. In too deep- he might as well board on the perimeters of some design school and minor in engineering while he was at it. Get a crew cut and obliterate it in favour of bedhead when the workload surpassed insecurity. Window shop along the streets of Gangnam, his hopes crawling about the self imposed limits that he might find a secondhand lab coat to wear. Become Dongyoung Kim. 

They found Donghyuck in the cafeteria, helping a kitchen lady distribute various cut hams among the metal dishes. He'd always been stubborn like that, and this was one of the sweeteners added to sweeping his point of view under the rug- never perpetrated by him, just the onlookers. 

"Hey hey hey," Taeyong said, eying the food as he did every day. They never added variety to the menu, and it seemed to be of little consequence to the team's bullet journals, but he was utterly sick and confused by the mystery meat fried rice dish they served every day. In a vague sort of way, it tasted like chicken, but only because of the blandness. When things were bland, they also had an air of mystery surrounding their existence. Picking through his plate each afternoon, he couldn't help but wonder what it took to make something so tasteless. Perhaps the farmers had taken to genetically enhanced chickens, with the explicit purpose of getting the axe to the neck and the plastic to the fillet and the fillet to the grinder and the paste to the batter and it’d result in that processed shit. Yes, Dongyoung was dictating his views on the world once again. Before they'd crossed paths, Taeyong had eaten like a pig every single day of his life, and had savoured the method of decay his own filth had formed an emotional attachment with.

"I love the net," Jaehyun said, speaking from the heart but discounting this truth by snorting, to one side, so Taeyong could feel it against his ear. Jaehyun had picked up a tray at some point and was proceeding to slap some of the ham slices on it. They had serano, and though it tasted grey and wilted, it carried a degree of exclusivity that mislead everyone into believing that they were 'dining' at a step above a deli counter, to be generous and delicate towards themselves, their potbellies. As Dongyoung said- it was a miracle they got anything other than worthless government acknowledgement at all.  He also said it was a miracle they hadn't been obliterated by now, while downplaying his own capacitor in the grand machine of things, and what sense did that make?

Donghyuck didn't let them haggle themselves into a free donkey meal, when the time came for the pleading. He offered up a position behind the glass counter, yellow rubber gloves dripping suds down his arm, and had gotten declined with a haste that gave him momentary whiplash.  Jaehyun pulled Taeyong's chair out for him- in the corner of all places, with the sun really going at it, causing the book freaks who sat in this very space to give up the ghost, have it evaporate out of their blood all formless and translucent- and went on about Jeongeon some more. 

"She really does seem like a cat person though, you have to admit," he said, rubber handle of the fork resting in the wrong hand. He wrote with his right, but maybe he'd been raised below a ruler and above new ideals, taught that the devil's spindly red fingers resided within the left hand and satan slipped your morality out through the pen ink, and that was why his handwriting appeared so mangled in the embarrassing post-its he left all over Taeyong's desk sometimes, in general, it was the words to the same three songs he'd had on rotation for weeks now. Despite what the tone of his statement might convince one to believe, Taeyong had been under no impressions that Jeongeon was a pet person in the first place, and hadn't tried to argue the walls of defense Jaehyun had put up in regards to her inherent weirdness. She had a sparkly pink notepad with a paw print on it, which animal's paw was it? Blah blah blah. As if any of this mattered, even in their fling. She'd be moving on by tomorrow, possessing an undeniable beauty that was both unattainable and unachievable by Jaehyun. He was tall but still, his nails barely scraped along her league, and he wasn't even bad looking- this was how well she carried herself. 

Taeyong didn't consider any of this discourse, but he responded as was appropriate. "I suppose yeah," he said as the mystery meat dissolved in his mouth(and not in a good, luxurious, melty-melty way, but rather it felt like when his mother washed his mouth out with green blocks of soap as a kid when he'd brought his cousin's swearwords to show and tell) and the rice began to imitate the texture of water. The more he chewed, the more his teeth acted the part of a dam to go along with this trend. "She has a really thin nose, like a minx or something."

Donghyuck joined them after wiping the sweat covered dollar bills the kitchen lady had bestowed upon him, invested in him as a means of goodwill and an incited edge of gratitude. He was still wiping them off his jeans- light wash, upkept in appearance, and if Taeyong had to guess, a credited constant in his life weighed down by the absolutes- when he got to them, and made a face like, the corner table, really? "They want me to test pilot the new upgrade," he announced, had taken Jaehyun's fork and was using it to take Taeyong's food, as entirely expected of him. 

"Obviously," said Jaehyun- they only ever had three, and Mark had barricaded himself into his hospital room a little under an hour ago and Yerim was dwindling away the days in the fetal position. Donghyuck wasn't on call per se, but the changing of this status was on call in and of itself, and thus he took one for the trinity(the religious imagery was a necessary evil in the land of angels and saviors and all that bullshit) so many times that the 'one' was overused and stale, and it progressed from taking twos until taking threes, fours, fives. 

Still, he was alive. This was awarded with more work and more unnecessary evils twisted into an excuse. "It's only a point one upgrade," Taeyong said, "nothing to worry about. I bet Dongyoung just lasered the gay pride flag onto its ass or something."  
Donghyuck snorted, settling down into an unassuming picture of nervousness. He said the rice tasted better when it was from someone else's plate.  

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if you guys want more !! i post writing updates on my twitter @11dishwashers (as well as tons of nct related retweets lmao) 
> 
> thanks for reading <3


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